Aaah! General Conference!

{photo by More Good Foundation}

General Conference! It's soon!

That's what went through my head yesterday.

[Here's more info on the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.]

So I've been gathering ideas to keep The Boy busy and at least a little bit engaged. Aaand...I've been thinking I should share my favorite resources for General Conference kid stuff. There are tons of awesome ideas out there. These are just some that I think will work well for The Boy.

Let's start with my favorite favorites:

Moms Have Questions Too has several posts with super-original General Conference activities for toddlers and preschoolers.

Katie's Blogness has a note-taking activity that I think will be perfect for The Boy, since he loves wheeled things.

More sites that were helpful:

Food Storage and Beyond has her own activities, as well as links to others.

Sugardoodle has new packets up for this conference, of course.

Lady Create-a-Lot's activities are good for the whole family.

Here are some activities for different age levels, plus snack ideas.

About.com's LDS page has some of the usual ideas--bingo, matching games, that kind of thing.

And LDS.org has activities for getting your kids ready for General Conference, which I think is a really good idea. I also like their Games & Activities page--it's got fun stuff that you can do anytime.

Are you guys getting ready yet? What are some of the best General Conference resources that you've found?

Something We Should All Think About

I just posted on my homeschool blog, which means that I wouldn't ordinarily make a post here tonight. But something came up over there that I think I should mention here, too.

This is important to me, and it's something that I take very seriously. Some of you guys are my friends, and I want us all to be safe. Some of you are people that I don't know but are probably lovely people. I know that there are several people who read this blog that I don't know. My site stats show that.

And the thing is, some of you (sorry) might not be lovely people. That's why I'm careful about what I post here--for example, why I don't use Little Boy's real name.

Microsoft has some good, straightforward information on blog safety. Scroll down to "Basic Guidelines for Bloggers." It's information that you're supposed to tell your kids, but these tips really go for everyone.

And here's a more personal take from a fellow blogger. Scary, but worth reading.

Tip: Remove Old Dry-Erase Marks

{photo source} Sometimes I put Little Boy's worksheets in page protectors (the smooth kind), so he can do them over and over again with dry erase markers. Works great.

Except when you forget to erase it. And discover it several days later.

Then it's stuck.

So I turned to good ol' Google and started working my way through suggestions for removing dry erase marker.

Vinegar: didn't work much better than water.

90% rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer: I'm pretty sure that would've worked, but we were fresh out of both.

White toothpaste: worked like a charm.

You do have to wipe the toothpaste off with a little water, of course. I don't know whether toothpaste will work on other surfaces, but it does work on Little Boy skin--he managed to get a little bit of dry erase marker on his chin while I was working on toothpaste-ing his page protectors.

{cross-posted at Pie For Breakfast}

"Gas Station Secrets"

 My dad works at an oil refinery. So when I came across this article (10 Things Gas Stations Won't Tell You) on MSN today, none of the tips were really "secrets" to me, but they're still good advice. The #3 tip really stuck out to me. It's something my dad has been telling us for years, and something I've been passing on to my friends, but they don't usually believe me. ;) hi friends!

From the article:

3. "My gas isn't better for your car; it's just more expensive."

Oil companies spend lots of money explaining why their gas is better than the competition's. Chevron's gas, for example, is fortified with Techron, and Amoco Ultimate is supposed to save the planet along with your engine. But today, more than ever, one gallon of gas is as good as the next.

True, additives help to clean your engine, but what the companies don't tell you is that all gas has them. Since 1994, the government has required that detergents be added to all gasoline to help prevent fuel injectors from clogging.

State and local regulators keep a close watch to make sure those standards are met; a 2005 study indicated that Florida inspectors checked 45,000 samples to ensure the state's gas supply was up to snuff, and 99% of the time it was.

"There's little difference between brand-name gas and any other," AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom says.

What's more, your local Chevron station may sell gas refined by Shell or Exxon Mobil. Suppliers share pipelines, so they all use the same fuel. And the difference between the most expensive brand-name gas and the lowliest gallon of no-brand fuel? Often just a quart of detergent added to an 8,000-gallon tanker truck.

{image source}